My name is Joyce and I have three beautiful girls. My middle child, Laura, is 11 years old and is autistic. She's a joy but a huge handful.

Her sisters are 'normal.' The oldest is 14 and in high school and the youngest is 6 and in first grade. My oldest is usually embarrased by Laura and by little one will usually play with her without problems. She's just now starting to realize that Laura is 'different'.

Laura is in a regular 5th grade classroom with 'normal' kids who have known her since 1st grade. They are amazing with her and very protective of her. Laura is at about a kindergarten-1st grade level. My big goal, scholastically speaking, is to have her able to read. She goes to a tutor once a week (grandparents pay for it - God bless them!) and Laura is starting to go forward again in reading.

My big concern right now is the puberty issue. She's starting to develop and I can almost see the hormones running through her. We've had a number of days in a row where she just seems to cry for no reason.

We've only had one incident (so far) that I found frightening. We were at the high school's football game to watch her big sister play in the marching band at halftime. We'd been to three gamns so far without problems but this time, my parents couldn't attend. She was a bit upset at first and I realized (a little to late) that she was looking for my dad (her favorite person) and was upset that he wasn't there. About 10 minutes before halftime, she became upset and began to try to hit me. I've never seen her like this before but she spent several minutes trying to hurt me. We ended up leaving about 5-7 minutes later.

Now I know to carry her pressure vest with me at all times.

Has anyone on this board had to deal with a girl going through puberty on the spectrum?